To SaaS or Not to SaaS: 2015 Enterprise App Outlook

Who's Moving to the Cloud?

With its promise of less IT infrastructure, fewer support personnel, and more appealing options for pricing, SaaS would seem to be a good fit for SMBs. The survey, however, showed that SMBs (less than 100 employees) were less likely to turn to cloud-based apps than medium and large organizations.

By industry, while having big plans to migrate applications to the cloud, the government sector is lagging behind other highly regulated industries such as health care and finance. Four years after the Cloud First mandate was issued for federal agencies, government-sector respondents report that their efforts remain primarily in the planning stage.

According to a new survey of IT and business professionals, conducted by QuinStreet Enterprise, new enterprise apps, such as those for Big Data and mobile device management, are more likely to be deployed in the cloud than are established enterprise apps like finance/accounting; human resources; and governance, risk management and compliance.

While businesses have been slower to move enterprise apps to the cloud (only a third are currently using cloud-based enterprise apps), it's not due to a lack of wanting. The survey found that major industries, such as health care, finance and government, have ambitious plans to migrate their enterprise apps to the cloud in the coming years.

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